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Gorman was born in Woodstock, Maryland on March 11, 1839, to parents Peter and Elizabeth A. Gorman (née Brown). The oldest of five children, he was named after the family's physician, Dr. Arthur Pue.[2] Gorman's paternal grandfather, John, emigrated to the U.S. from Ireland circa 1794, first settling in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania before moving to the Baltimore area.[2] Arthur's immediate family, including younger brother William Henry Gorman, moved to Laurel, Maryland[3][4] in 1848, where they had a 150-acre (61 ha) farm.[2] Arthur had attended public schools though there were none in Laurel; Gorman's father hired a succession of tutors until arranging with Congressmen William T. Hamilton and Edward Hammond a position for his son as a U.S. Senate page at age 11 in 1850.[2]

Gorman became friends with Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas who made him his private secretary.[2] Gorman subsequently served the U.S. Senate in various offices as page, messenger, Assistant Doorkeeper, Assistant Postmaster, and finally Postmaster.[when?][5]

Gorman married a widow, Hannah "Hattie" Donagan, on March 28, 1867. They would have six children: Haddie, Ada, Grace, Arthur P. Jr., Anne Elizabeth (Bessie), and Mary.[2] In 1890, Gorman's wife and daughter Grace escaped a fire at their Laurel house "Fairview" that his father had built; a new Queen Anne style house was built in its place the following year.[8][9][10]

Gorman was closely aligned with Baltimore political leader Isaac Freeman Rasin. Rasin helped support Oden Bowie's rival William Pinkney Whyte in the 1871 Maryland Governor race with vote buying in Baltimore city. Whyte in turn gave Gorman a position as director of the C&O Canal.[11]

In 1880, Gorman was elected to the United States Senate, where he soon became a leader of the Bourbon Democrats. The New York Times reported the election was influenced by large groups of "ward rounders" who shot and wounded black Republican voters at the Howard County polls.[14] In 1884 Gorman worked on Grover Cleveland's bid for the presidency.[15] He served as the Democratic caucus chairman from 1890 to 1898, as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Printing (in the Fifty-third Congress), and as a member of the Senate Committee on Private Land Claims (Fifty-fifth Congress).[5] In 1889, Gorman sought to differentiate his party from a growing racially mixed independent-Democrat/Republican coalition. He was quoted saying "We have determined that this government was made by white men and shall be ruled by white men as long as the republic lasts".[16] He played a major role in financial and tariff legislation, especially the Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894, where he defeated President Grover Cleveland's low tariff goals by raising the tariff to thwart competition with industry in his state.

Gorman was reelected twice more in 1886 and 1892[5] (then by the state General Assembly), but was defeated for re-election in 1898, losing to Louis E. McComas. After his defeat, Gorman campaigned for the other Maryland U.S. Senate seat, and was elected to the U.S. Senate again by the Legislature in 1902.[5][17] He was again appointed as the Democratic Caucus Chairman, which he held from 1903 to 1906.[5] Gorman was briefly a candidate for U.S. President in 1892 and 1904.[18]

In 1903–1905, per a Maryland State biography, Gorman "spearheaded an attempt by Democrats to disenfranchise black voters in Maryland, who tended to vote Republican." Related legislation passed easily in the Democratically controlled Senate of early 1904, though Governor Warfield did not sign the bill into law, and it was rejected by voters in late 1905.[12]

Gorman served as a U.S. senator until his death from a heart attack in Washington, D.C. on June 4, 1906.[12] He had been ill with stomach trouble and hadn't left his Washington house since mid-January.[18][19]Gorman, Maryland and Gormania, West Virginia, are named after him,[20] as is Gorman Road in North Laurel.[21] An elementary school near this road is named "Gorman Crossing".[21]

Haddie Gorman in 1895

Gorman's daughter, Haddie, married Stephen Warfield Gambrill[22] (1873–1938) in 1900. He later became a Maryland state delegate and senator before service in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1924 to his death.[23]

Ada Gorman in 1895

Gorman's daughter, Ada (1870–1950), married Charles Joseph Magness, a young man about half her age,[24][25][26] on September 5, 1908, against her family's wishes. Magness was soon thereafter imprisoned for desertion from the U.S. Navy. Upon his release a year later, the couple lived in Washington, D.C., and then the Baltimore suburb of Lutherville.[27] When her mother died in 1910, Ada was cut off from her share of the Gorman family estate.[28] The marriage lasted a total of 14 years before Ada divorced in 1922 due to her husband's infidelity.[27][29] She died childless and with few friends in the spring of 1950.[27]

Gorman's daughter, Grace (1871–1958), who went by the name "Daisy", lived at the historic Overlook farm house in North Laurel on land inherited by her father. Built for her in 1911, the home was subsequently owned by Kingdon Gould Jr., who raised his large family there.[30] The town of Daisy in Howard County, Maryland is named after Grace. In 1895, she married Richard Alward Johnson (1871–1918), the first manager of the Laurel race track and a Maryland state senator during his last few years.[31] They had two children. Richard Jr. raised and trained horses. His sister Grace (1898–1977) married Braxton Bragg Comer, Jr.,[32][33] son of former Alabama governor B. B. Comer, in April 1918 and had a son Richard Johnson Comer[33] (born 1919) who married Annie Laurie Comer[34] (born 1919) and had two children: Grace Louise Comer (born 1945) and Richard Johnson Comer, Jr. (born 1947).

Gorman's daughter, Bessie (1875–1959), married Wilton J. Lambert (1871–1935) on June 24, 1896,[43] at the Gorman's Washington home on the corner of 15th and K Streets.[44] Lambert was a member of the Princeton class of 1892 and described himself to fellow alumni fifteen years later as a Maryland Democratic party speech-writer.[45] Lambert's alumni bio included that he completed his legal studies at Georgetown University; lived in Washington, D.C., at 1620 S Street N.W; represented the District at the St. Louis Exposition; and had two children: Elizabeth (b. 1897) and Arthur.[46] An attorney, Lambert helped Arthur Gorman attempt to buy the Washington Senators baseball team in February 1903.[2] His son, Arthur Gorman Lambert (1899–1991), was a member of Princeton's class of 1922, also practiced law, and founded Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland;[47] he unveiled a donated portrait of his grandfather, Arthur Pue Gorman, at the Capitol in 1943.[48]

The repair ship USS Tutuila was originally named SS Arthur P. Gorman in August 1943.[57]

In 2000, a proposed neighborhood within Columbia, Maryland's Kings Contrivance section was to have been named "Gorman's Promise", though when the former U.S. senator's attempts at black voter disenfranchisement were made known, the naming was canceled.[58]

^"From Washington". Alexandria Gazette. October 22, 1908. p. 2. Magness was born of humble parents in Baltimore in 1885.

^"Deserter Magness Torn from Daughter of Late Senator Gorman". Washington Post. October 22, 1908. p. 1. Magness is 22 years old according to the record of his enlistment while Mrs. Magness is said to be 38 years old.

^"Gorman Daughter Rebuked in Will". The Washington Herald. Library of Congress. July 7, 1910. Retrieved September 1, 2013. The will of Mrs. Hannah D. Gorman, widow of the late senator Arthur P. Gorman, which was filed in the Probate Court yesterday afternoon, cuts off Ada Gorman Magness, who, against the will of her mother and family, married Charles Magness, a musician in the Marine Corps.

^"Mrs. Magness Asks Decree"(PDF). New York Times. August 4, 1922. Retrieved September 1, 2013. Mrs. Magness says that since Jan. 1, 1921, her husband has been guilty of infidelity on divers occasions.